The marketing analytics industry is broken.
I’ve been in this industry for 15 years and have essentially the SAME job as I had in 2006.
Can you imagine all the data sources that have spawned since then? In 2011, there were 150 Martech vendors. Today there are 8,000. I mean, what in the actual fuck?
It’s no wonder that most “analysts” are spending their time on implementation and data cleansing. It’s a bitch, girl, and it’s not what we planned.
This year, I know at least 2 rockstar analysts who quit the industry altogether. One to start a body shop, the other to start a distillery.
And they’re not the only ones quitting. Data Scientists are the tech role most often looking for a new job, spending 1-2 hours a week on a job search. Turned out not to be so sexy after all.
The frustration mostly comes from the 8,0000 vendors selling what often amounts to snake oil; promising a silver bullet to get them all the insights they need if they just invest in this tech. What companies fail to realize is the human resources and time needed to make this software work. This results in businesses changing vendors more often than the analysts can get the data in a good place, (usually, because they’re understaffed), and so defines our professional purgatory… No wonder why 85% of data projects fail.
I see beyond this state to a new place where we create a different kind of analyst. Clickvoyant is software, yes. But this software is tool agnostic. We perform the data science behind the software. Our users just upload data and ask a question.
In this way, an analyst can perform research unencumbered by the requirement for tech skills. This allows someone strong in communication, leadership, research, and interpersonal skills to thrive as an analyst; all qualities my community needs more of.
A generation of “citizen” analysts enabled by our software can close the $200B data jobs gap and get us to higher ground.
I invite you to a healthy debate if you don’t think it’s possible.
